408 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF 



of dispositions, and we feel as if we were free agents : we seem 

 to move our right hand or our left, and to sit still or walk, exactly 

 as we choose ; and we possess reason and conscience to guide 

 our conduct. 



Yet, notwithstanding this feeling of freedom, " all theory is," 

 certainly, as Dr. Johnson said, " against the freedom of the 

 will." P 



The truth is, that we act necessarily according to the strongest 

 motive ; our liberty consisting, as Voltaire says in his charming 

 article on Liberty q, in the power of doing what our will requires 

 of absolute necessity. Johnson, therefore, added correctly, 



we be struck with admiration on observing that, with the more energetic and 

 complicated actions of birds, the cerebral system becomes more ample ! Is it 

 not still more surprising to see the combination and energy of the faculties 

 perfectly coincide with the wants of the species ? How can we, on the other 

 hand, refuse to be convinced of plirenology, when it proves to us, by the in- 

 spection of many thousands of skulls, that if birds, whatever be their class, order, 

 genus, or species, or even their peculiar habits, have a faculty in common, for 

 example that of migration or recognising places, their skulls will always re- 

 semble one another at one point ; and, as this truth applies to all the faculties 

 discovered by observation, to deny the existence of these facts is to deny that the 

 eye is the external apparatus of sight, the ear of hearing, the nose of smelling, 

 &c. 



" In quadrupeds and quadrumana, in which the cerebral operations, generally 

 considered, are more numerous and present a more continued action than in birds, 

 we find the cerebral system more developed. Some organs, which were but 

 rudimentary in the two first classes, are very prominent ; and the acts dependent 

 upon them, being more energetic, confirm the general law of nature, the re- 

 lation between the extent and force of the acts of the nervous system with its 

 volume or development." " Full and perfect reliance may be placed on my 

 observations ; for they are the result of a scrupulous and conscientious examin- 

 ation of many thousand skulls of brutes, and the dissection of their brains, sub- 

 sequent to the study of their most striking manners and habits." 

 p Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. iii. p. 294. 



Consult Gall on Materialism, Fatalism, and Moral Liberty, I.e. 4to. vol.ii. from 

 p. 79. to 132. ; and on Reason, Witt, and Free Will, vol.iv. p. 340. sqq. ; and on 

 Free Will and Liberty, 8vo. t. i. p. 228. sqq., and t. vi. p. 427. sqq., especially 

 on Illusory Liberty and Moral Liberty. All these writers, however, were antici- 

 pated in "A Philosophical Enquiry concerning Human Liberty, by Anthony 

 Collins. London." Collins again owes his views to " A Treatise of Libertie and 

 Necessitie, wherein all Controversie concerning Predestination, Election, Free Will t 

 Grace, Mercy, Reprobation, <Jr c. is fully decided and cleared, by Thomas Hobs. 

 London, 1654." 



q Dictionnaire Philosophique> 



